Pomegranates
by K.M. Baker28
Summary: A story in four parts loosely based off the myth of Hades and Persephone. Or, what Severus does with his time while his wife is away.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is my first time ever tackling FanFiction. I have written other short stories but have made a resolution to write more and actually publish some stuff online. Feedback is more than welcome. This story is loosely based off the myth of Hades and Persephone. I was wondering what Hades got up to while Persephone is away so I decided to write it out as a fanfic centering around Severus and Hermione. I own nothing in the JKR world, I just decided to dabble with the characters.

Each year like clockwork she journeys out into the world, the perfect balance of witch and muggle. She's needed there, she says. She puts her brilliant mind to use there, blending small amounts of magic with muggle technology or medicines to help cure their ills or make their lives easier. She works equally hard in our world, making it a more tolerant place for people like her and creatures most wizards see as beneath us.

With her she takes her warmth, her smile, the smell of sunshine, flowers and warm breezes. She takes away all that lights up my world, for I cannot venture with her there. I am too much a recluse now after years of seclusion, of dark deeds and oaths, of walking the knife's edge between light and dark. I was never social anyway, not that she has ever minded, she's not a social creature either but she also can't stand to be cooped up. So, like all happily married couples- we compromised. She would split her time equally between isolation here with me and her life outside of both me and our magical world. I still get to see her sometimes while she's away but the opportunities are rare. I loathe leaving the castle for anything, and she is busy making the world a better place. She says this will be one of those summers where letters will be the only contact we have.

So for the next six months I will be a crueler, colder, more unfeeling, being than I usually am and throw myself into my work and research. I set my glass down with a sigh, and stare for another moment into the long dead embers in the grate, then slowly drag myself through the door to our room. The thought of sleeping in our bed alone makes me feel ill and a fresh wave of misery washes over me as I slide between the cool sheets. I look to her nightstand and the emptiness there mimics my internal feelings. It looks foreign to me to see it without her wand, a book and her usual teacup.

Her scent lingers here but it makes the loss of her warm body and copious curls even more acute.

I couldn't tell how many days or weeks had passed, for all I knew it had only been hours. Time was meaningless, I spent my days in a blurred haze over a vast amount of cauldrons. I'm not sure how I hadn't ruined multiple batches of potions. Or blown myself up. My focus hasn't been up to par lately and I know it. When I'm working I can shuffle my feelings behind shields, but I miss her sitting on an empty work station, I miss her ideas and suggestions, and I miss the way her eyes blaze when she's passionately debating a point with me.

Minerva keeps me company of course, she always does while my wife is away. It's probably on my wife's orders that the irritating tabby comes to check on me at all. She ensures I'm fed and healthy, discusses research with me, we play chess. Anything that passes the time. I got a letter today from my wife, her small script sprawled across pages of parchment as she told me everything she had been doing lately, she dedicated multiple pages to how much she missed and loved me. Her scent clings to the parchment and I can hear her voice reciting the words, see her brow furrowed as she writes. I know she has cried over this letter, her longing for me is as clear and as acute as my own. There are small drops on the parchment where the ink has blurred with her sadness. I read and re-read the letter each day until I get another. I write her back, though mine is much more concise.


	2. Chapter 2

More months have gone by, summer is in full swing here. I feel her warmth in the sunlight through my windows, I smell her when I sit near the lake and hear her laughter in the leaves as the breeze wafts through them. I hear her sadness in the rain and share her joy in the sunshine. The sunsets, each one earlier than the last remind me that it is nearly time for her to come home. In the darkness of my rooms I stare blankly into the fire with my glass of whiskey. The book next to me remains closed. I have gotten more letters in the passing weeks. They sit in a neat stack next to me. The parchment soft and pliant from constant refolding. In all our years together I have kept every letter she has ever sent. Something she finds endearing. I will never understand her love for me, or her acceptance of my darkness when she shines with such a brilliant light.

I chuckle darkly as I recall times when her light has grown fierce, and deadly. Rather than radiating it has scorched. The war hardened her, the aftermath turned her to stone on the outside. She can be as cold and cruel as any of the death eaters I used to align myself with. I have witnessed her wrath firsthand and been glad to have never been on the business end of her wand. She would never turn her wand against me, even when I've deserved it. With those memories of her I haul myself to our cold bed.

It no longer smells of her.

I spend my sleepless night remembering our wedding. It was a small, quiet affair. It was perfect for us. A few of our friends came to show their support of our union and we bonded ourselves in every way we could. Our minds, souls, magic and bodies have been intertwined which makes her distance feel all the greater. We feasted and laughed, smiles came easily to me that day and she looked radiant. We spent the night making love in our bed, our shower, our tub and in our living room. We danced slowly to soft music and for once I didn't worry about looking ridiculous, how could I with her beauty shining next to me. Once the party dispersed we made love until we were exhausted and fell asleep in a tangled heap. The next morning, we shared a quiet breakfast: me in my trousers and she in my dress shirt. She has never been more lovely to me.

My back aches from hunching over my workbench. I have been in my lab for days developing a new potion. I have not been idle while my love has been away, I have been developing a potion that will help restore memories. I want to give Hermione her parents back, give Neville his parents back, I want to reverse some of the damage that my former brethren have caused. In times like this she would say she knew there was good in me. I just want to prove that I can do it. Who else knows the human mind better than I? I, who have hidden thoughts, obliviated myself if necessary to hide them, from two of the greatest legilimens in history; only to restore those memories again later. I have studied the mind for decades now and feel as though I am close to a breakthrough. I focus my energy on pouring magic into the potion as I stir, I am exhausting myself on purpose. Neither the stack of letters or our pillows smell like her anymore and sleep is harder to come by without it.

Minerva has been chastising me for my behavior again. She hates when Hermione leaves as well because I snarl at the staff, berate the students, and dock as many house points as possible while meting out countless detentions for the smallest infractions. She says I'm beastly. She doesn't realize the staff members treat me with open derision or as someone who will do things for them. She doesn't realize that she is my only friend while my wife is away. She has never used me for any gain, she has never been my friend for the things I can do for her. The students mock my appearance and call me names, not that their words could ever hurt me. The opinions of those dunderheads mean nothing. Especially with her gone. The students leave tomorrow and I am glad for the summer of quiet solitude. It will make it easier to spend days in my labs if I am not expected at mealtimes or classes.


	3. Chapter 3

Another night alone. How many have there been? Surely she will be home soon. I should ask her when she'll be back in my next letter so I can count down the days. I have been working tirelessly in my lab and have completed one memory restorative potion. My days have been blurring together the more time I spend in my lab and I am thankful for the distraction.

I have been tossing and turning in bed for hours and I am assaulted with memories of her while she's away. The gleam in her eye when she's excited shines as brightly as the moon. Her passion burns brighter than any of the stars, and I can hear her low moans and husky whispers in the shadows around me. I know the day that she will return is drawing closer than ever but it still feels as though I have an eternity to wait. The thought of more restless nights keeps sleep away. My mind turns to us meeting again after the battle.

She came to see me in the hospital, I remember the first thing I was aware of was a soft weight next to my hip and an even softer voice cutting through the ambient noises around me. I latched onto that voice and it brought me back to the land of the conscious. I discovered that the soft weight I felt were dainty feet, and the voice that I heard was coming from a young woman who looked much too thin, much too pale, with a halo of riotous curls surrounding her face. Not that I could see her face with the book shoved in front of it. I must have made a noise because suddenly her bright brown eyes met my obsidian ones and she darted from the room. I was unconscious again before she returned.

After I was released she defended me at my trial, she stared down any who thought me a Death Eater, a spy. She saved me from life in Azkaban. She saved my soul from the Dementor's kiss. I have told her since that it was then that I first wanted to kiss her. I wanted to claim her passion as my own and see where it took us. Instead I watched her leave, trailing sunshine in her wake. We didn't see each other much after that, until she came back to privately study for her NEWT's. She asked if she could tutor under me privately rather than under Slughorn, I wanted to refuse her but I couldn't. Not after all she had done for me in the past, I haltingly agreed but found myself enjoying her company more and more. I heard her friends' derision of me, and of her opinion of me. They were convinced that I should have been given The Kiss for my crimes. They were convinced that I had managed to play my part as a spy too well, and had somehow managed to get on the side of the light once their victory became clear. Never mind the fact that they abandoned me in the shrieking shack. Never mind the memories I provided the boy-who-lived-to-be-an-even-larger-piece-of-shit-than-expected that ensured his success over the Dark Lord.

When she finally snapped on them it was glorious.

The days and nights grow colder, the students have returned and classes have resumed. In the short time they've been back I have docked so many points that all of the hourglasses are empty. The beginning of term is always the same. The students are probably aware that my pain at my wife's absence emerges as rage towards those around me. It's not as though I hide my love for her when she's around. While other professors freely slept around I never joined in. I love my wife, I never understood why the other professor's married, just to treat their partner's so appallingly. I know they mock my self-imposed celibacy behind my backs. I openly mock the drama caused by their adultery each time it arose. I spent another sleepless night in front of a dead fire. Recalling the conversations we had in the past, her tearful apology over leaving me in the shack, discussing hopes and dreams, me retelling the horrors of my past.

This time I remembered my fierce little lioness protecting me with her wand against her so-called friends. She wielded her vine wood so fiercely that the dragon whose heartstring rested inside would have been proud. The two imbeciles had decided that I had somehow coerced her into being with me. She had never hidden our romance from them, she had distanced herself over time and was spending more time with me than with them. They came to confront her, knowing she would be in my office or private labs. Unfortunately for them, they walked in on us in the midst of passion caused by a rather heated debate about making a more long-term sustainable wolfsbane potion. The debate had turned from peaceful discussion, to heated debate, to passionate sex up against one of the walls of the lab. They picked a bad moment to confront her about spending her time with me. They watched a few moments in dumbfounded horror as I took her against the rough stones of the dungeon. By the time she was able to open her eyes to see our audience she had already climaxed and her magic was sparking through her hair from the intensity of it. I was blasted in the back with a surprisingly strong Cruciatus curse and the magic from her orgasm was channeled through her wand and at her friends in a volley of spells and curses that left them both nearly dead on the floor. That was one of the first glimpses of her cruelty I had ever seen. She has not spoken to either of them since though they have tried to blacklist her from wizarding society. They use their influence against her but no one who knows her believes what they say, regardless of the fact that some of it is true.

Since that fateful day she has never left my side save for her journeys away from the Castle.


	4. Chapter 4

I am once again in my lab, the days are short and cold, the wind is bitter and bites through even the warmest of cloaks. The air is frigid when still and the glossy surface of the lake is black. Snow blankets the ground around the castle and I find peace in the stillness. The windows are covered in frost and the cold penetrates into the castle so I have been forced to light fires in the grates of our rooms. The warmth from the fire is a stark contrast to the world around me, and the feelings within me. The long months of silence on her end have left me worried that something unthinkable has happened, though I know I would feel the shift within me were she gone from this Earth entirely. I know she is busy, I know this was our deal, but I wish it weren't. I miss her. The cold morning finds me bent over my cauldrons again. I have not slept or eaten in the last few days, I have been so immersed in my work. My concentration is broken by a soft tap on the door.

"I'm busy" I grunt, trying to keep count of my stirs, I need to change directions soon and cannot afford a mistake at this point.

The soft tap comes again, and it's accompanied by the irritating pull at my magic as my wards are slowly dismantled. The distraction isn't enough to warrant a miscalculation on my part and the pattern of my stirs transitions smoothly to the next step. I pick up my wand and begin muttering the incantations I need to stabilize the potion within.

Another knock at the door and it creaks open.

"Severus?"

It is only Minerva, probably wondering where I've been these past few days. I wave my hand towards the door and shut it in her face. The lock clicks with a ringing finality. I do not wish to be disturbed. The small glimpse of me over my workstation should be enough to convince her to leave me alone. I hear the door open again and sigh in irritation, it appears she is going to wait me out. I reach the next step of my brewing and place my hand on the workbench where I left the mortar of crushed ingredients I need only to find it isn't there.

Puzzled I tear my eyes away from my work to locate it only to see it clutched in an all too familiar hand.

"I'm home, Severus." Her voice suffuses the room, three softly spoken words and all at once my world realigns. She unfastens the catch on her cloak and I get a proper look at her. She is as radiant as ever, all tanned skin and soft freckles, copious curls and bright shining eyes. She smiles at me and the answering smile comes as naturally as any smile ever has though the muscles have not made the effort in months.

I reach for her and pull her into my arms, the smells of summer surrounds me as I breathe her in again. I plaster desperate kisses atop her head and wrap her tightly in my arms, I murmur my love and devotion for her into her lips, hair, neck and shoulders as I greet her. Behind me I can hear the potion destabilizing but find that I cannot care because she is home with me again. My heart fills to bursting with the emotions that were absent these long six months. I vanish the spoiled liquid as I gently lead her out the door to our room. My black eyes never leave her warm brown ones. I can't believe she is finally home, all the months of loneliness and waiting, of wishing for her next to me become worth it when she grants me another of her beautiful smiles. It is a special smile she wears now, one only reserved for me. We make it through our door and she switches from following me to leading me to the bathroom. She turns the taps on, always knowing the perfect temperature. Then she carefully, methodically, and tauntingly teases each button from its assigned hole. The slow undressing is enough to arouse me. There are no words between us, none are ever needed. The first day of her return we exist on touches, smiles, and cozy relaxation. There will be time for words later. After days over the cauldrons I realize I probably stink so I am thankful for the opportunity to shower before the night I know will be filled with passionately reacquainting ourselves. As she slips the last button free she trails her dainty fingers across my skin as she removes my many layers. I have missed her touch. After I am fully undressed she starts on her own clothing and I drink in the sight of each piece of skin that was uncovered before me. She is so breathtakingly beautiful.

I cup her cheek with my hand and her eyes flutter closed as she leans into the touch. Another of those special smiles graces her features and her warmth leaks through my palm and into my heart. I lean forward and gently kiss her forehead, one hand still on her face, the other arm wrapping around her tiny waist to pull her closer.

"I missed you" I mutter into her hair.

She sighs softly and gives me a gentle squeeze, her hands running slow circles around my back.

"I missed you too, Severus" She rises up onto her toes so she can kiss the scar on my neck. The skin there is always so sensitive to touch and I hiss in pleasure at the sensation. She is the only one I've allowed to see my scar other than the healers.

I guide her into the hot spray of the shower with me not breaking the warm contact we share. After so many months alone I do not want to let her go for anything. The way she clings to my side and rests her head against my chest shows she feels the same. She leans past me to soak her hair and it trails in wet paths down her back. I sweep some of the curls off her collar and slid my hand down her neck, her shoulder, trailing a path down her arm to her hand. I pull the appendage to my lips and kiss it softly, my finger ghosting over the ring proudly displayed on her fourth finger. She smiles brightly at me and captures my mouth in a searing kiss that could have lasted hours for all I know. We wash each other slowly, trailing hands over hungry flesh, slick with water and soap. I kiss her whenever I can and our slow kisses turn passionate and fierce. The slow build-up for what is to come making us both desperate as we continue denying our bodies what they truly want. Finally, she has had enough and she shuts the water off, practically dragging me from the shower to our bed.

"Impatient tonight love?" I smirk at her; she is always the first to break in our little game.

"Severus, please" she whispers "I need you."

That is all the encouragement I need to press her into the mattress and show her how much I missed her.

The morning dawned bright and cold but our bed was finally warm again. It smelled of summertime and her warm body was pressed against mine. Our legs were tangled together in the sheets, her head was on my chest and her hair was in my face. My arms were wrapped securely around her and the only sound was that of our soft breathing. I slid out of bed gently so as not to disturb her and summoned an elf in the sitting room to bring us breakfast. When I returned with the tray she was sitting up, wiping the sleep from her eyes and taming her hair back into a plait. She smiled brilliantly when she saw me and moved to accommodate me in bed for our breakfast. I sat there surrounded by her warmth drinking my coffee as she leaned against me eating pomegranate seeds.


End file.
